In the case of the old Honor system it’s no longer available like Molten Core is. We know who participated, what they achieved, when, and we can in this instance restrict those specific items (some of which were arguably more difficult to obtain than any raid has ever been) to the people that earned them when the system existed. It’s also worth noting that people's time investments, even at level 85 and going back and doing these old raids over and over to build a full set, is not inconsequential. It's not accurate to compare raid item drop rates (regardless of character level) now, to current honor gains and their comparison to the original honor ranking system.

We do agree that the restriction to the specific characters that earned those titles kind of sucks. It’s the player that earned those items, really, not any specific character. If we had a way to make them account-wide right now, we would. We can’t, but account-wide achievements are planned for Mists of Pandaria, and we hope to be able to include Feats of Strength with that system, which would open up these items to all characters on that player's account.

It's also worth reiterating the point made in the original reply I made "while keeping the door open to reward them to more people in the future." We'd like to find ways to make these items available to players who didn't earn them through the original system, while keeping them prestigious for those that did.

Lastly I want to apologize that this restriction was not communicated before the patch was released. As much we hope to be in front of messaging any changes before they're implemented to ensure you're well informed and can plan your play schedule with these things in mind, it doesn't always happen. For that we are sorry if anyone was looking forward to using these items for transmogrification and is unable to do so.

More info on why lvl 60 pvp items are not allowed:
This is so frustrating on so many levels

Just a heads up, despite what was said in the blue post I was able to obtain and tranmog the full set of lvl 60 pvp gear including the warlord recolors and high warlord weapons despite never being higher than rank 9 (centurion).

"An orc - a true orc warrior - wishes for one thing: To die in the glory of battle against a hated enemy." -Varok Saurfang

Just a heads up, despite what was said in the blue post I was able to obtain and tranmog the full set of lvl 60 pvp gear including the warlord recolors and high warlord weapons despite never being higher than rank 9 (centurion).

Oh rly? Have to go check that out now... I never got higher than rank 9 myself so this is exciting!

I am quite liking the idea of the new heroic dungeon "Priest" set, the white cloth epic pieces with Spirit. Combined with some of the off colour tier-6 from Black Temple, this could be a lot of fun...

I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.